How complex is the core of life, how complex its representation?
In her artistic paper works llse Pierard (b. 1976, Belgium) focusses on the abstracted form of a cell, the basic and the smallest unit of life. Her intriguing and fragile paper works in their reduced oval shape are an ode to the cell.

The artist’s concern is to represent the timeless aesthetic harmony and beauty of an existential truth with a simple yet intense distillate of her own artistic material and language.

In her working process she explores a wide range of everyday handicraft paper and wrapping material: transparent paper, silk paper as well as craft paper, metal foil or cellophane sheet. Ilse tears, cuts, pierces, crumples, wrinkles the paper into creases and flattens it again, then adhering layer over layer of oval shaped paper sheets into minimal, poetically equated paper composi­tions hiding and at the same time revealing its inside. Accepting wear marks alongside the edges and corners – traces of use and handling – the artist emphasises both the fragility and the enormous strength hidden in the core of life.